inflation effects on us

infLATION EFFECTS ON US

kiplingers on inflation
kiplingers estimates that inflation rates will peak at 9% this year

i hope if thats true
then
i hope it starts to decline

obviously gas prices have a big influence on that rate
those gas prices are complicated
the ukraine war will not get better
the russians are one of the big producers of oil
but people are starting to not buy their oil
less oil in the world
more folks wanting oil
means
we pay more for our gas
plus
theres other pressures on the oil prices 
it seems all the countries besides the usa that are the bigger produces are not folks you want to be friends with

my car gets 40 miles a gallon
it costs me at almost $6 a gallon about $60 a tank 
i buy a tank a month
so 
i am spending $30 more a month for gas
my wife she gets $34 miles a gallon and fills hers up twice a month
we then spend an extra $90 a month for gas

when we lived at the country n we bought 12 tanks of gas a month since we both commuted 30-40 miles one way
so that would be about $360 a month more if we still did that

the solution is to drive a car that gets good gas mileage
or
drive an electric car
but
those decisions were made in the past for most of you and cant be made again until the future

a relative has a hybrid car and says she hardly goes to the gas station
another has an electric car and never goes to the gas station

then the other solution is really complicated to fix the gas prices
its more than just fixing inflation

there does seem a lot of greed in those gas prices that we are all paying for at the pump

i thought back over my life during the 70s and 80s and i just dont really remember it affecting us
i know it did but i think we were so busy with college and medical school and residency that we didnt notice it as much

i know i had friends who were paying over 20% on their medical school loans
we paid 10% on our first mortgage which was unsual at that time
it was a owner financed loan

luckily recently we just dropped our interest rate on our mortgage to 2.9% last summer
our college loans totally around $20,000 had rates about low to mid teens
these rates are slowly climbing now so probably more folks will not seek a new loan 
however rents are going up so much now that renting is hard on a lot of folks

when i shop for groceries the one item i notice is the price of eggs
the eggs i buy that we like use to cost around $3 now its $6
they are free range brown eggs
i found white cage free eggs for less than $3

i just got our quote on our liability insurance
its gone up 10%
i expect our car and home insurance will go up that much if not more

im sure our cable and cell phone and hos dues and dental insurance and medicare and medicare supplements will go up again this next year
our long term care insurance went up 25%
this year all of them went up before all this inflation picked up speed

my wife shes teacher retirement does not have a cost of living adjustment
lets say its for $20,000 a year
that means that next year after this inflation it will really only be worth $18400
you can see that over time inflation erodes her retirement

plus she only gets $5000 a year form social security 
if not for the wpi that hurts teachers taking away their social security she would be getting $15,000
teachers make sure you work for a school district that pays into social security 

lucky for us she managed to fund a 401 k for several years that is properly invested based on her age
its a buffer for inflation and for the money the feds dont pay her in social security 

if we needed to we could tap her 401k to supplement the loss of social security 
we dont plan to take any monies out until the feds in the form of rmds make us start to take it out when she reaches ?75

i have to do rmd on mine ira now but we usually dont use it to live on

my social security is at lets say $20,000
it has a cost of living adjustment each year
this year it was around 7%
next year that will be much higher probably around 9%

we have investments outside of our iras that we fund our monthly expenses with
some of this is in money market funds that were paying close to maybe zero
now
with the rising interest rates that fund rates will rise maybe over 2%
so we are only losing 7% on that money 

now we simply adjust our spending on certain items like the eggs to offset the increase in prices 
but
we will still have to probably access more from our funds to counter the rise in prices

luckily we are in a financial situation where we will be ok

sadly 
others especially lower income folks are and will be hit the worst

i call them
our willing workers

if i was a politician in ether party 
you better believe the biggest thing in the next mid term elections will be

its the economy stupid

the organicgreen doctor